Blast Test of Full-Size Wall Barriers Reinforced with Enamel-Coated Steel Rebar

A type of enamel coating that contain hydraulically reactive calcium silicates have been developed to improve the performance and service life of steel used as reinforcement in concrete structures. To demonstrate the effect of enamel coating on the mechanical performance of concrete structures subject to blast loading, two wall barriers with identical dimensions, which were often used to keep the terrorism attack (such as car bomb attack) away from critical buildings, were fabricated and tested in a military base. One of the wall barriers was reinforced with coated rebar and the other with regular rebar. Four equivalent TNT weights, 4 lbs, 10 lbs, 30 lbs and 45 lbs explosive were applied to observe the deformation, cracking and failure mode of the two barrier walls. Generally, the test results indicate that the barrier wall reinforced with enamel coated rebar has much better integrity than that with regular rebar: fewer cracks on the front and back faces of the wall, more stress transferred to the steel rebar, and mitigated catastrophic failure of the wall. The new coating can be of great value in increasing the performance and the service life of defense-critical infrastructure.